I sit here, paralyzed by my own coziness. A bubble of warm air hovers delicately around me. It’s Christmas eve and my mom’s house is cold. Sometimes it feels like the walls aren’t meant to keep any heat in, but just to blockade the wind. There is a structure to the air around me. My eyes droop as my warmth continues to radiate through the still crisp air…
And then my mom calls me to help my brother find Christmas tree decorations. They’re in the basement. My protests are futile.
The basement is somehow 5 degrees colder than the upstairs. The air is just as still, but the stone floor steals every last molecule of heat from my dead stiff feet. I remind myself that coziness means nothing without a penetrating cold to warm up from. The hours are short and I fight old thought patterns. It’s not what I experience. It’s how I interpret the story that matters.
I don’t have an inbox inside my head. Not enough real estate for an inbox and a big brain like mine.
The past two weeks have been a test of my mental endurance in a way I have never before experienced. I have always enjoyed meetings, interviews, or any opportunity to strike up a conversation, which suits my work. As an online tutor I spend up to 50 hours a week in face-to-face meetings. While I enjoy getting to tackle problems with a variety of students, the work leaves you little time to have a thought to yourself. Add to that my own grad school finals and an addiction to audiobooks; there’s been a steady accumulation of “ACTION REQUIRED” messages building up. My body has secured these reminders in my neck and shoulders, which refuse to release them until they’ve been tried.
Audiobooks are my escape, and Naval Ravikant’s Almanac is overflowing with perspectives I want to try on. One of his practices strikes me as being enjoyable and life enhancing.
Step 1: Be alone and do nothing.
Step 2: Don’t try to stop thinking. Don’t do anything.
Step 3: Can you last an hour?
I have taken liberties on the presentation, but the message is the same: Naval thinks you’re a dopamine dependent embarrassment to society and doubts your ability to meditate.
This meditation method stands out to me: It encourages permitting thoughts to play out entirely and not just pass. Let’s compare a small sample of each method:
The mindstate of a traditional meditation
Breathing in…. breathing out…. breath
– I think that amazon package was supposed to arrive last night and it’s pouring. I should at least check the –
let it pass….. let it pass…. Breathing in… breathing out… breathing in out…
Cool New Meditation
When he said I smelled like milk I shouldn’t even have replied… It just made me look sensitive and I don’t really care, but that might not be how it was perceived by his cousins. Whatever I don’t really care about being perceived as sensitive, but maybe next time I just stay quiet cause that joke was dumb… I have 6 days to file my BOI… I should get on that later today. Maybe I can fit it in between 2 and 3…
While the first method has helped me to relax my mind many times, the second shines when made into a very steady practice. The endzone reward of this type of meditation is the eventuality of one day clearing your mental inbox and getting to wander the halls of your peacefully empty and organized mind.
Naval Ravikant has inspired me to allow my brain to unravel. I just need to give it time.
Doing nothing is hard. After deciding I would meditate, I immediately purchased this blog domain and got writing.
tired and buzzing 